Hearst Health Partners With UCLA to Present Hearst Health Prizes in Data Science

LOS ANGELES & SAN FRANCISCO (January 21, 2022)—The UCLA Center for SMART Health, an interdisciplinary collaborative that looks to the integrated transformation of health care through emergent data and technologies, and Hearst Health, a division of Hearst and leader in care guidance, announced their partnership to offer the Hearst Health Prize.

Launched in 2015, the prestigious Hearst Health Prize identifies and promotes programs and interventions that demonstrate improvements in health. For the first five years, the Hearst Health Prize focused on effective population health programs, and each year awarded $100,000 to the winner. Beginning in 2022, the Hearst Health Prize will change its focus from population health to data science initiatives that demonstrate a positive impact on health outcomes. The partnership establishes a relationship for Hearst Health to provide funding for the program and award, offered through the UCLA Center for SMART Health. The financial details of the partnership were not disclosed, however Hearst Health’s funding for the program is projected to exceed $1 million over the term.

“Our award provides a national platform to showcase how data science is making a difference in the lives of patients,” said Gregory Dorn, MD, MPH, Hearst Health president. “The engineering and health care expertise that Alex [Bui] and Arash [Naeim] have aligned at the UCLA Center for SMART Health makes them ideal partners for this next generation of the Hearst Health Prize in data sciences.”

Established in 2016, the UCLA Center for SMART Health is dedicated to the research, evaluation, and application of digital health technologies and data-driven analyses that advance human health by predicting and reducing risk, improving decision-making, and optimizing the spectrum of clinical care activities. “The Center for SMART Health has created a collaborative environment that stimulates advanced, tailored precision medicine for patients. Collaborations among faculty and partners, such as Hearst Health, will advance this mission,” said Steve Dubinett, MD, interim dean of the David Geffen School of Medicine (DGSOM) at UCLA.

“With the increasing activity in healthcare related to artificial intelligence and other data science solutions, everyone working in health care should understand what programs and approaches result in better health for patients,” said Arash Naeim, MD, PhD, co-director of UCLA Center for SMART Health.

“The application of AI and data science to health care has reached a state of maturity where it is important to investigate the approaches that are most impactful in generating health outcomes,” said Alex Bui, PhD, another co-director of the Center for SMART Health. “Our collaboration on the Hearst Health Prize will help disseminate best practices for the benefit of everyone.”

The call for submissions for the Hearst Health Prize will open in the coming weeks. For more information on submitting an entry, click here.